Telltale Heart

The Telltale Heart

[June 20, 2025: Fixed file designations for all pack versions on Modrinth to make resource pack install smoother.]

Inspired by a similar system in Don’t Starve Together, this datapack adds a craftable item that can be used with an armor stand to resurrect a dead player in hardcore mode.

Crafted with applicable mind, body, and soul components, and a little blood, the Telltale Heart can be given to an armor stand (which now have their arms as well). When a dead player (in spectator mode) possesses the armor stand holding the Heart, they will be revived with a randomized Punishment.

This pack was made, designed, and balanced for my friend group’s short-term multiplayer hardcore dragon runs; however depending on popular usage and request, it may be expanded to include other balancing/difficulty modes for longer-term worlds. I stream all active development activities for this pack over on Twitch.

Usage

Give the Telltale Heart to an armor stand, and a dead player (in spectator mode) can possess that armor stand to come back to life. Be careful! There will be a lightning strike.

Crafting

To craft the Telltale Heart, you first need to start with a Vessel:

The Vessel can be crafted with any four body items in the corners (bone or rotten flesh), and any four mind items in the side slots (gunpowder or spider eye). Then, the Vessel can be crafted into the Telltale Heart using any soul item (ender pearl, diamond, or phantom membrane). This will also take 5 hearts of damage, so make sure you’re healthy! (This recipe is shapeless):

Optionally, this pack also comes with an insanity system inspired by Thaumcraft 3’s Warp mechanic. This system incentivizes surviving players to be quick in resurrecting their dead comrades through increasingly ill effects.

Punishments

Punishments in this pack consist of a Drawback and a Challenge, the drawback and challenge are selected at random. While a punishment is active, the newly resurrected player cannot be brought back a second time until it is cleared by completion of its challenge.

Drawbacks

• Hunger: An infinite Hunger status effect that cannot be cleared by milk.
• Soul Fray: Reduction in maximum health.
• Homunculus: Reduces player scale, attack damage, and block/entity interaction ranges.

Challenges

• Blood: Kill a certain number of hostile mobs.
• Knowledge: Gain a certain number of XP levels
• Friendship: Tame an animal.

Insanity (aka Warp)

The Warp system is on by default but can be toggled by operators via /function effigies:toggle_warp_system. When active, the warp system kicks in when a player dies. As long as there is a dead player in the world, all surviving players will continuously accrue warp points. As these points increase, they will start to experience ill effects, including:

• Auditory hallucinations
• Random status effects
• Mind spider incursions
• Creeper.

Once all players are alive, the warp points will gradually reduce at a faster rate than they were accrued.